


I Love Being Here with You (Oh, But I Do)

by oneawkwardcookie



Series: Song and Dance [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Dancing, Domestic Fluff, Hopeful Ending, Inspired by Music, M/M, Mention of Christopher Diaz - Freeform, Pining, Pre-Relationship Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Radio, Slow Dancing, Songfic, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneawkwardcookie/pseuds/oneawkwardcookie
Summary: Doing the dishes leads to dancing in the kitchen, because music is the food of love.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Song and Dance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040189
Comments: 28
Kudos: 125





	I Love Being Here with You (Oh, But I Do)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madamewriterofwrongs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamewriterofwrongs/gifts).



> Prompted by [CJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelesteJEvans/works) [asking for slow dancing](https://madamewriterofwrongs.tumblr.com/post/634280080130080768/i-have-a-birthday-in-2021-and-if-anyone-wanted-to), and I'd be remiss not to mention my OG slow dancing friend [Kat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkat0723/pseuds/kitkat0723/works).

The apartment always felt too big before. Echoey ceilings and empty space - lacking in who he really was, a stark reminder of what he didn’t have.

But now there's a hand-drawn card on his fridge, the low chatter of some children's TV show in the background, and a half-eaten plate of cookies on the counter-top. He's wiping down the remaining smudges of flour, which have somehow spread from one end of the kitchen to the other, when he hears approaching footsteps. There's a clank of dishes in the sink behind him.

“It’s not fair – how is that I’m always the one doing all the baking _and_ I’m the one getting soft in the middle?” Eddie jokingly grumbles the complaint, and he turns to see him leaning beside the sink, propped up on his elbows.

“You were always soft in the middle.” He reaches out a hand, thumb brushing away flour from Eddie’s forehead, smoothing out the incredulous look that had taken hold. It’s replaced with something new and yet so familiar. He'll never tire of the way Eddie looks at him, as though he can scarcely believe his eyes that he's real.

He probably looks the same way.

“Something on you…”

“Thanks.”

He swallows, quickly bringing his hand down to pinch at Eddie's stomach, only stopping when he gets an elbow in his side. He resumes his cleaning, before joining Eddie at the sink, brushing against him as they work away. They fall into a steady routine, until Eddie breaks the silence by leaning across him, using an elbow to flick the switch on the radio.

The booming brass of a big band washes over the kitchen, and he feels a blush rise in his cheeks as he wipes away at a bowl, diligently ignoring the feel of Eddie’s raised eyebrow next to him as a woman starts crooning over the speakers.

“Didn’t take you for a golden oldies kinda guy.” When he faces him, he doesn’t find judgement – a hint of curiosity perhaps, tinged with something that looks a little like disappointment, but not the mocking he had grown to expect.

“It’s… grounding. When I’m in the kitchen, I need something in the background. I listen when I’m alone.”

Eddie just studies him for a moment longer, before nodding and resuming washing up.

He can’t help the sway of his hips to the swinging bass, forgetting for a moment that the music isn’t playing whilst he’s making a meal for one and trying to keep his mind off his swirling black hole of his thoughts. He’s jolted from it by Eddie hip-checking him before joining in with his movements, both in sync but also close enough that they keep touching. He only catches the lyrics halfway through, and he finds himself worrying about dropping something fragile each time he hears “I love being here with you”. His own heartbeat feels louder than the insistently jaunty drumbeat, until the musical interlude booms out.

Over the years, he’s gotten slightly better at working out when Eddie was about to do something spontaneously, at catching the glint in his eyes or the slight turn of his lips, a sixth sense about the turning cogs inside that brilliant mind. It’s how he senses it a split-second before it happens, even though he’s utterly unprepared.

One second, their arms are pressed together, a line of warmth beside his heart. The next, a soapy hand is sliding into his, and he’s being flung across the kitchen. Eddie belts out a laugh as Buck almost trips up, over his own feet, and what feels like his heart, falling out of his chest at the feel of Eddie’s fingers intertwined in his.

“I thought you’d be a better dancer than that.” Eddie tugs him back and he falls into him, before righting himself, using his proximity and the few extra inches of height to look down on him.

“I am!” It sounds petulant to his own ears, so he decides to put his money and moves where his mouth is. He grips tighter onto Eddie, clasping his other hand as well, and draws on what little he can remember from awkward weddings growing up.

He leads them in something that’s neither swing nor a jive, but they find a rhythm, moving back and forth on his kitchen floor. Soon they’re battling to see who can move faster, Eddie pulling him back at the last second to stop him smashing into the cabinets.

The song ends with a bang and they slump over, still clutching each other as they double over in laughter. The radio host's chatter offers a brief interlude, but the next song starts, quivering strings pulsing through him, and he feels the mood shift. It’s as though his yearning is pouring through the airwaves, raw and exposed.

He makes no move to part, and neither does Eddie, which must be how they end up standing upright, face to face, palm to palm.

He breaks first, unable to bear the unthinkable and unwilling to dare hope for the unattainable. He doesn’t let go, doesn’t know how to when every whorl and loop is a new brand of ecstatic torture against his knuckles, but he shifts to the side.

The music turns the move into a tentative shuffle; one that Eddie mirrors near immediately.

“You can’t slow dance.” It’s a challenge from Eddie.

“Eddie.” He doesn’t know what he means by it, but it’s the only word that breaks through the fog. He wants to ask Eddie so many things.

_Can I? You don’t know what I want, what I’ll take. What are you offering, because I need all of it._

He can’t bear to lose the feel of Eddie below his fingers, so he traces one of his hands over a tensed forearm, a clothed bicep, finding a resting place above his clavicle.

“Good.” He’s not sure if he was supposed to hear Eddie’s murmured praise, but the exhale caresses his parted lips.

He can do words, or he can normally, and can even show Eddie some of how much he means to him in ways that Eddie understands.

 _This._ This feels too big for words. Nothing he can imagine would show Eddie the bare truth of him.

“Can you lead?”

Eddie answers by moving them around the kitchen in a slow circle. The pace is glacial, and the song is sparse enough that there’s nothing else to fill the space. With the slightest pressure on his waist, Eddie guides them round the kitchen island, which is helpful because he feels too light-headed and entirely unaware of his surroundings.

He can’t keep looking at Eddie, not when his eyes always reveal more than any pining song lyrics could, so he turns his head towards the living room, only to be hit by the searing realization that Chris is in his living room. If _he_ is baffled by what’s happening, how would Christopher interpret seeing his dad and Buck dancing to a song that’s warbling out “I know that it’s you I love”?

“Chris –” He turns back, expecting Eddie to let go.

“It’s alright.”

He inhales to retort, but Eddie just cuts him off again. “It’s _alright_.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He can only nod and continue their loop of his kitchen. The song ends and moves onto something far too upbeat for the atmosphere that has permeated their bubble, that has brought his desires dangerously close to the surface.

“That was… good.” He can’t say anymore, not when he’s soaring.

“Just good?” The smirk in Eddie’s eyes is whiskey, but it’s watered down with a nervousness he hasn’t seen since…

“Maybe we need more practice, so we can be great.”

Eddie sighs out a smile.

“We can do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> The two songs that play are [Peggy Lee - I Love Being Here With You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOLEjQ7Rt9E/) and [Margaret Whiting - Oh, But I Do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcfrHt9btws/)
> 
> I suppose this could be a prequel to [No Plan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26222035), which itself was a prequel to [Fixed Record](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25867009)! Or maybe I just love these two slow dancing...
> 
> If you liked it, kudos and comments are always appreciated!


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